Trapped
by earthandflames
Summary: Emmett pushed his face into my neck. "I don't know why you tried to hurt me, Jasper," he said, squeezing my wrists.  "You know that I'm stronger than you." AH and slash.
1. Prologue Part 1: Obsession

**A/N: Twilight and its characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.**

**Treat this more as a prologue than a chapter ^^.**

**JPOV**

Becoming a prisoner overnight was such a strange thing to come to terms with. Usually, it was so easy for me to separate myself from the world; I could manage days at a time indoors when I wanted to, but when your containment is forced upon you, it's a different thing altogether. Sure, I could still make the trip to the bathroom to wash the taste of his cock out my mouth, and peek at the street through the gaps in the blinds and I could almost make myself at home in these foreign walls. The silence tasted like disconnection. My skin felt strange on my body, because I knew nothing I owned really belonged to me anymore. It belonged to him.

I'd woken up twice that morning. The first time was when he'd rolled me onto my back and pulled my chin up to his face. Without a word of warning, he'd thrust his tongue between my teeth, slipping it under mine and around the walls of my mouth. His lips moved on mine. His hand found the small of my back and lifted me towards his giant, bearlike form, bent over my twisted body. His other hand was on the headboard.  
Just as I was beginning to recover from the shock and a chance for me to react arose (although I doubt I would've taken it), he lowered me back onto the bed and smiled a dark, crooked smile.

"Good morning," he said. His voice was deep, but he kept it soft. I could still feel his presence deep under my skin and his arms locked around me.

I mumbled something pathetic, not even a word. I was too terrified to speak because it was so recently that he'd told me, if I made a sound, or if I called for help, he'd kill me before anything could be done. I don't think I will ever forget. He'd swivelled round to me when I was screaming in the back seat, taking his hands off the steering wheel and grabbing me by my hair. Insanity had entered into his eyes and dominated his face. He was a demon and I was helpless as a rag doll, torn by his torture. The flame that he'd burnt me with was diminished as he stood above me, but I could still feel it. It seared through me when we came into contact.

"I'm going to school," he announced. "You're going to stay here for me, okay Jasper?" Somehow he managed to speak my name with both venom and relish. I didn't move. I didn't want to look at him again. Regardless, he didn't need my consent. "And…" he began, but paused. His face came closer to mine, and his voice grew softer, "you're not going to call anyone, are you?"

Silence settled down into his room, sinking into the sheets. It devoured the yawning distance between us, and removed any evidence of life that existed on the other side of his veiled window, or elsewhere in the house. I could taste the tension in my dry mouth, dancing on my paper tongue. He exhaled and pushed his face into my neck, breathing in my scent as something that vaguely resembled freedom grew closer and closer. I did my best not to recoil, to flinch, but it wasn't long before he pulled away, grabbed his bag off the floor and exited the room. I heard his feet on the stairs. A door slamming. A bunch of keys singing as the blocks of metal hit one another. I waited.

Silence.

I rolled over, my body making a thud as I hit the new, firmer surface. I felt cold – dirty – lying in the bed that he'd claimed me in, so I sprawled myself out across his bedroom floor, my eyes on the tiny gap between the wide, solid door and the carpet. The smell of wool was familiar, somewhat comforting. I dug my shaking fingers into the fabric as the colours of the sideways room in front me merged, and I fell back into a light, dreamless sleep.

**EPOV**

The first time I saw him, I wanted him, and I swear it feels like yesterday.

It was just after US History. I was depositing the unwanted contents of my bag into my locker when I overheard a couple of the girls from my class talking about him.

"Apparently he just moved up here from _Texas_," said Jessica, clutching a ring binder. "_And_ I heard he has a sister. She's a freshman." The girl was all smiles and braces.

"Mhmm," Lauren mumbled in reply, raising her eyebrows and nodding, although she seemed more interested in the condition of her nail beds than anything else. Jessica was too wrapped up in her own excitement to notice or care that Lauren, quite frankly, didn't give a shit.

All of a sudden, she emitted a high-pitched squeal. "Look, Lauren!" she said. "Look! He's coming!"

Even though she wasn't talking to me, I couldn't help but turn too, my eyes narrowing when I spotted him approaching from the other end of the hall. He looked small, like a woodland creature out of its habitat and he had these huge, bright eyes that were filled with fear, and although he tried to keep them away from us I knew that he'd caught us staring. Curiosity pulled his head up. Our eyes met. Something in my core shifted, and I'm not sure, but I reckon it was something to do with that emptiness that was born when my enviable ability to be so easily fulfilled as a child was washed away. It was such a strange feeling for that pit to be torn out so suddenly and replaced by this sudden hunger, this sudden electricity. He was something jagged in my veins; a foreign body invading my system. I was the first to look away.

Jessica, unable to contain her embarrassed giggles, grabbed Lauren by her arm and pulled her away to their next lesson. The new kid and I were left alone.

I slammed my locker shut, and when I turned around he was walking up to me.

"Hey," he said. "D'you know where Trig is?"

I picked up on his Southern accent, his crooked teeth and the way his clothes were too big for him. He was fucking beautiful, and I felt myself getting hard just looking at him. _Shit_.

I coughed, as if it would make my boner disappear. "With Mr. Varner?" I asked, trying my best to sound nonchalant, although to be quite honest, I don't think I was very convincing.

A smile of relief came across his face. "Are you in my class?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Come on," I said. "I'll show you the way."

"Thanks," he said. "Oh. By the way, my name's Jasper."

He held out a hand awkwardly, and although it wasn't customary to shake with someone my age, I wasn't about to pass up the chance to just, touch him. I gripped his small hand in mine and shook it once, looking into those big brown eyes of his.

"Emmett," I said, in response.

When we pulled away from each other, I took him to the Math building, where he was assigned a seat on the other side of the classroom from me.

We never spoke after that, but the hunger in me remained. I stole glances at him in the locker room when we were changing, and, if it were not for the other twenty-eight boys in the room I think I would've just fucked him there and then every day. In the beginning, I scanned the cafeteria for his blonde hair and his big, nervous eyes, but I could never find him. Eventually I just gave up looking, but that was by no means the end.

I started following him home. The first time, it was merely out of curiosity, but I'd underestimated how exhilarating it would be, so I did it the next day, and the next day, and the next. It wasn't long until I started waiting outside his house in my dark Jeep, enthralled by what would happen next, if anything, for example, who else lived there, if he went out, and where.

I was growing obsessed with Jasper Hale. I wanted him. I wanted him to want me.

I usually left at around four, but one time, I was lucky enough to fall asleep in my car and wake up to him leaving through the front gate. His schoolbag was slung over his shoulder. The clock on my dashboard read 9PM; my curiosity was on fire again.

The next day I came back at the same time, and once again I followed him to the library, where I waited outside for two hours and followed him back home. It became routine; an obsession. It wasn't enough to just masturbate over him anymore. It wasn't the same as that time, that day a million years ago when we first met. I'd been blessed with his skin on mine when I was aching for him.

_He wants me, _I thought. _He wants me so bad._

The times when he caught me staring at him in the locker room, he stared back. I knew he wanted me. I knew he needed me like I needed him, but he was awkward. He'd kept his head down in the hall when we'd first met, so I knew I'd have to make the first move.

When I followed him in my car, he was oblivious, but he wished that I was following him. It came to me while I was tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for him to leave his house. The shift in me I'd felt when I saw him; he'd felt it too. I knew it.

At night, I lay awake and he went round and round and round in my head like a fucking carousel, but the carousel wouldn't stop, and it was the middle of the night, and all the children on it were screaming and they wanted to get off but they couldn't. It just went faster and faster until they all got sick.

I yearned for his warmth in my bed. I yearned to just fuck him so hard and in one way I hardly knew him, but if it wasn't okay for me to want him then why did my head keep telling me over and over that it was?

My mind was a machine. I didn't sleep the night before, because I was thinking about whether I should do it or not, and if I was too scared.

_I'm not scared._

_He wants me._

_He's been waiting for this just like I have._

So this is how it happened. At 11PM I waited for him halfway between his house and the library. If I was hungry back when I first met him, then I was starving as I sat in the static darkness. I looked at the dash every minute, feeling like ten had gone by in between each time I looked. My hands were on the wheel, tapping out a rhythm impatiently. I waited and waited and waited.

Finally, he showed, walking quickly from the other end of the street. When he drew near, I climbed out, slamming the door behind me, and when he caught sight of my towering figure. His pace slowed until he came to a stop about ten paces away.

"Hey," I said. Silence.

_He wants me. Any second now._

"S-sorry," he began. Fear painted his voice. "Do I… know you?"

This was all wrong. Something had gone wrong. I covered the distance between us within three seconds, and I knew he wanted it so I grabbed the bag of his head and kissed him. I kissed him hard, and my hands moved down his back, pulling him closer. It felt so fucking good. No more waiting.

He pulled away, pushed weakly at my chest and turned to run, but I grabbed him by his arm, my grip tightening around his wrist when he struggled.

"Let go!" he shouted. "For fuck's sake, let go!" His Southern accent was adorable. I wanted to kiss him again, but he kept on pulling away.

"What's the matter?" I asked, trying to sound calm.

_Something's not right. I've gone wrong somewhere._

He kept on pulling. I picked him up, threw him over my shoulder and carried him back to my car, shoving him into the back. He tried kicking me on the way, but I barely felt it. He was so light in my arms I could barely feel him.

I climbed into the driver's seat and turned child lock on, before slamming my hands onto the steering wheel. Jasper was kicking the door in the back, shouting for help. My mind was a mess. Everything seemed abstract and out of place, and it went round and round and round before any of it started to make sense. I waited for a second, eyes closed, before I acted.

Suddenly, it occurred to me what I'd done. A weight entered my body, and I knew in that second that this was wrong. I'd been wrong all along, and I had no fucking clue what to do, but I knew there was no bargaining with him now, not after what I'd done.

I turned around in my seat, and grabbed him by his hair. He stopped kicking and shouting instantly. I felt him shiver underneath my hands. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. "Jasper," I said. My voice was shaking, but I don't think he heard me anyway. "If you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you." I breathed in one ragged breath. "I'll kill you before they can save you."

**JPOV**

I spent most of the day curled up on the sofa downstairs. The phones were disconnected, and my cell was in my bag, which I'd searched the house for, although it was to no success. I didn't really feel like I could do anything apart from sit there and watch the day go by, waiting for him to get back and do it all again.

The only thing that crossed my mind was my family. I was terrified for them. I had no way to contact them, to tell them I was alright. The door was locked, and even if it wasn't, I'm not sure if I'd chance escape. If it would be worth it. He'd told me that he'd kill me.

I felt weak; fragile. Derailed. At the time, the future didn't seem to exist.

The sound of keys came again. I heard him enter one block of metal into the lock, twist it and swing the door open. My heart felt heavy as I realised that he was back, that I'd have to look into his face and convince him that I wanted him, like he'd asked me to so many times during that night.

The sound of footsteps was in the hall outside, approaching, and a girl with short, black, spiky hair poked her head around the doorway. She let out an ear-splitting, scream. "What are you doing here?" she asked.


	2. Prologue Part 2: Tongues

**A/N: ****Twilight and its characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.**

**JPOV**

There were a few steps and a million miles between us. I could've walked up to her and touched her, felt her skin on mine; I could've told her everything, and maybe it could've ended there. The shock in her eyes was supposed to be sympathy and the invisible barrier that stood between us wasn't supposed to exist. I needed her help, but my tongue was reluctant and my lips didn't come apart from each other. There were no clocks to measure the seconds or minutes that passed as I clawed at the hope that was just out of reach.

"What are you doing here?" she repeated. Her voice was shaking and she was hesitant, her hands clamped on either side of the doorway that separated the hall from the living room. She was crouched slightly, preparing to run or to pounce. "Who – who are you?"

There were so many things I wanted to say. They came to the forefront of my mind and bled away, but they went unspoken because I couldn't quite grab onto them. Because I was terrified. Because he'd find out. My traitor tongue sat behind my traitor lips and they were his. The ghost of his fingers was on my spine.

"I'm not going to take anything!" I blurted out, my words tripping over one another.

The girl raised an eyebrow. I didn't know what else to say. I just didn't want her to think I was a threat, when in fact, I was under one. Was she his sister? She didn't look much like him, all small and delicate and she was sort of pretty with those dark little eyes and bright limbs. It was difficult to believe that his blood ran through her veins.

She looked at me hard, up and down. I didn't know what to say, but she did. "Get out." Her voice was still shaking even though she had nothing to be scared of. "Get out. Now."

I wanted to so badly. I wanted to run past her and tear open the door. Get away. But I couldn't. He'd find me and he'd tear me apart.

"I… I can't." I didn't know what I was saying. "Let me explain." _Fuck._ Her eyes grew all expectant then and perhaps a little more scared, too. She wouldn't believe me if I told her. She would never take my side.

Once again there came the sound of keys in the door, and I felt saved and terrified at the same time. He walked in and saw her staring at something, staring at me. She didn't turn to check who it was but I knew that she recognised the heavy footfalls better than I did.

"Move," he said, and he pushed her gently to the side, entering the room.

His vacant eyes met mine. My knees grew weak. We stood in silence. My heavy traitor tongue behind my immobile lips. I felt the absence of time; the hope that had left the front door as he'd entered; three of us and the tension packed into a suffocating space.

The stillness hung over us for what could've been ten seconds or an hour and my head felt light with him so near. I was disorientated; an emotional wreck plucked from the path and dropped in nowhere. I wasn't in Forks or Texas. I was in Emmett's world.

His sister began to ask questions. "Fuck off, Alice," he said, but she didn't move. She didn't matter to him now.

He dropped his bag on the floor, bent down and unzipped it. After rummaging around for a bit he produced a small little object, and chucked it to me. "One call," he said. "That's all you're allowed." He didn't move from where he sat, crouched on the floor. Alice didn't move from behind the doorway, captivated by curiosity and fear. I tried to imagine what this must look like to her.

My cell phone felt strange in my hands. There were nine missed calls from mom and six from Rosalie, and there was this crack on the screen that hadn't been there yesterday. I had voicemail too, but I knew I couldn't check it. The battery was low and Emmett's eyes were still on me. I turned to face the other way, and dialled my mom's number. It rang twice before she picked up.

"Jasper?" The concern in her voice made my heart break. I wanted to be with her now, not trapped inside this house as a prisoner to him. I knew what to say but I didn't know what was going to happen.

"It's me, mom."

I heard her breathe a sigh of relief from the other end. She was so close and so far away. "Jasper," she said. "Come home now." She was trying to convey authority but all I heard was relief. She couldn't protect me now. We were both powerless.

"Mom, I… I can't." I felt Emmett's eyes on my back. I felt Alice's eyes on my back.

My mother inhaled sharply. "What do you mean you can't? Jasper, where are you? Where have you been?"

"I'm going to be fine, mom," I lied.

"Jasper, come home this instant."

"You're not going to see me for a while."

"Jasper-"

"I love you."

"Jasper don't you hang up on-"

"Bye, mom," I whispered.

I disconnected the call and dropped the phone on the floor. It rang again, but Emmett grabbed it and turned it off, putting it back inside his bag. A single tear slipped down my burning cheek. I was shaking again, but not with fear this time.

"Come on," Emmett said, the sound of his voice was dislocated from where I stood. "Quickly."

I turned back around and followed him through the living room, past Alice who I didn't make eye contact with, and up the stairs. I was trembling. My feet were shaking as I put one in front of the other, the adrenaline pumping through me. I felt weightless. He let me into his room and shut the door behind him. Adrenaline. Weightless. He couldn't do this to me.

It all happened so fast. I swung around and delivered a right hook, my fist colliding with his jaw, the back of his head colliding with the wood. I threw myself against him, punching him in the stomach over and over and kicking at his shins. The anger poured out of me through my fists and my feet. How extraordinary and extraordinarily beautiful it was to feel something again. A smile touched my lips.

The next thing I knew his hands were clamped around my wrists and we were on his bed, him on top of me. He held my arms up beside my head and my body down with his weight. I couldn't move an inch to either side, crushed underneath his torso. I tried to move my legs but he'd spread his out over mine so that I could only bend them down and plant my feet on the floor.

He was breathing in and out, fast, and he smelled like sweat and stale cigarettes and cheap deodorant. I stared into his face, his dark eyes digging into mine. There was stubble on his angular jaw and his hair dangled over my face, the tips tickling my nose. I tried moving. I tried pushing him off but it was useless.

I knew what was coming but I couldn't prepare for it. His lips came down onto mine, and his tongue pushed into my mouth. It found his second tongue, the traitor tongue, the one living inside my traitor mouth and it pushed against it. I felt his dick harden against my leg, digging into my thigh. I know that I shouldn't have, and I know that it was wrong, but it's not like I had any control. I felt myself get hard. I didn't kiss him back. Fatigue came into body and soaked up all the adrenaline and I didn't know what to feel, so I welcomed it and closed my eyes, doing my best to ignore him but it's difficult for me to break away from reality at the best of times.

His lips moved to my neck and he bit into me, hard. I gasped, throwing my head back. "What was that for?" I groaned. He did it again. The pain was in three points under my skin and I thought about the marks that would be left there and everywhere on my body. There would always be sharp little pieces of him in me.

He chuckled and I felt his ribs shake. He opened his mouth and inhaled, as if he were going to answer, but then he moved his mouth back to my neck and kissed me, the desperate aggressive movement of his lips interspersed with little bites that made me flinch. Slowly, he began to move his hips back and forth, rubbing his dick against my leg, and I could just tell, I could just feel him wanting to undress us both. He wanted to go the whole way right now, but there was something else. There was something else he needed to do. He was putting it off

I've always been good at reading people. On my first day at Forks High School, I'd walked down the hall, keeping my head down, and it was exactly the same as back in Texas. I could feel everything. I didn't even have to look at anyone to feel their most prominent emotions – it was easier for me to tell if someone was happy or sad or angry or scared than the colour of their eyes.  
At first I thought that everyone could do it. I used to sit on the stairs when Rose came home from school and she always wore a blank expression, but I asked her why she was upset or why she was so furious and it got on her nerves. She asked me how I knew, how I could always tell what she felt when no one else could, so I explained it to her – how I could just _feel _it, and she told me I was a freak. I felt like an outcast so I ignored my ability, my curse, as best I could but it was impossible to avoid it. You can't shut yourself up forever, but I found out that if I buried myself in books, in art, in anything then I didn't have to spend my time face-to-face with people who never spoke what they felt, and always spoke what they didn't. Everyone's done it, but it's sick when you can never shelter yourself from it.

On my first day, I was walking down the hall. There were three of them standing so close to each other: two were creating a hurricane of overwhelming excitement and nonchalance between them, and a third, who didn't really give off any one emotion, but he just seemed warm somehow. I shook his hand and his skin was warm too, and he told me his name: Emmett. I never forgot, but I never spoke to him again. I was terrified. I wanted to remember him as the person I met; I didn't want to see anything else, anything ugly, because we all have something ugly in us. It's nice to stay distant sometimes, to remember people as not really being people, but being innocent little things.

Emmett pushed his face into my neck. "I don't know why you tried to hurt me, Jasper," he said, squeezing my wrists. "You know that I'm stronger than you." I tried moving my arms again. I tried moving my body out from underneath him. "You know that I could crush you if I wanted." He was right. He could keep me under him forever, but he didn't want to hurt me. I just knew. There was always this shadow of regret behind each of his emotions. When he'd thrown me into his car, right before he grabbed me, it was almost as tangible as his lust and his greed.

"Stay here," he instructed. He climbed off me and went into the corner of his room. I didn't watch him; my eyes stayed on the ceiling and my mind wandered to the thought of disobeying. If I were to run, would I get as far as the stairs? The front door? The end of the street? Did the possibility, no matter how small it might be, exist, that I would get home, or to some form of safety before he caught me?

I didn't move. I couldn't. I didn't even turn to look at what he was doing as he rummaged through his belongings. It was getting dark outside. My traitor tongue sat in my traitor mouth. I was just a possession. I felt weightless. I felt attracted to him; the boy or man or monster who'd raped me. I didn't know what I felt, but I was quickly becoming lost in myself. I was sick – I knew that. I was definitely sick.

After a few minutes his hand came down on my shoulder. "Come on," he said. He was holding a Sports Bag over one shoulder and he was carrying his schoolbag on the other. "We're leaving." His voice wasn't menacing, but I knew I didn't have a choice in this, so I peeled myself away from his bed, followed him out from his room and down the stairs.

There was no sign of Alice. I peered back into the living room. Nothing. The house was devoid of sound.

In the driveway, Emmett threw his bags into the boot of his Jeep and opened the passenger door for me. I refused to look at him as I climbed in and I didn't ask him where we were going as he sat down beside me. My ability was useless as far as predicting the unpredictable giant next to me was concerned. For all I knew, he could've destroyed me at any second.  
His keys went into the ignition and the engine roared to life. We left Forks behind. The night was already upon us.

_This is it, _I thought. _This is the beginning of my life._

**A/N: Reviews are awesome, and be warned: there will be many lemons from here on out.**


	3. Walmart

**A/N: Thank you for all the story favourites! Twilight and its characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.**

**EPOV**

My car was dominated by silence. I repeatedly tried to break it. Seize it with my words and snap it in the middle, but it kept on recollecting itself no matter how many times I tried to initiate a conversation. It was like cutting open the ocean.  
_Are you okay? _I asked the same question again and again, perhaps one too many times, but how much is too much, especially in a situation like this? I don't know what we were, but I wanted us to be something. Perhaps it was both idealistic and unrealistic. In my head I kept on shifting between wanting to control him and wanting to love him and make him love me. It wasn't logical, but I'm never logical. I was reaching out for something over and over. He was the ocean. He kept slipping through my fingers, but I refused to give up – it's pretty fucking difficult to give up on the only thing you want in the world.

Jasper was slumped in the passenger seat next to me, his head rested on the window. Every now and then I would glance over at him and see his brown eyes reflected in the glass, trained on the dark, fleeting landscape. One of his legs was up, a dirty trainer planted firmly on the leather seat. If it had been anyone else, I would've snapped, and when I noticed I scarcely managed to refrain from reacting. I grunted and did my best to ignore it.

I wanted so badly to know what he was thinking. The boy who flinched every time I laid so much as a finger on him. The boy who never said much of anything.

I remember one time at the start of lunch break, I was walking to my locker when I saw him talking to Bella Swan, or rather, Bella was talking to him. I watched from a distance and fell into step with her after he'd gone.

"Hey," I said. Bella and I were never particularly close but we ended up at a lot of the same parties. There never are many parties in Forks, though.

"What's up?" she replied. She didn't look at me, but she continued walking. Her pace was brisk.

I thought about how I was going to phrase my question, what my question even was, all the while trying to remember how to sound nonchalant, although I don't think I've ever sounded nonchalant in my life (or at least never to any degree of success). "Erm, I saw you talking to the new kid," I said. _Great job, Emmett, _I thought sarcastically.

Paranoia burnt my cheeks, as, what turned out to be an infinitesimal silence between us elongated in a way that made me fear she suspected something. I looked at her. Her eyes were still cast ahead, and there was no change of emotion on her pale face. Part of me wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but still, I couldn't be sure. I don't think you can ever be sure when it comes to knowing what someone else is thinking.

"Yeah," she said at last, "we have to do this stupid project for Biology class, and, well… He doesn't say much, does he?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Haven't really spoken to him to be honest," I replied. And that was that. I admit – I wanted to go further. I wanted to ask her the exact words that had formed on his tongue. How he'd spoken quietly and with hesitation.

There's something strange about every one of us, like how I'm insane and obsessive, and how he finds it difficult to sustain a conversation with anyone for longer than thirty seconds. 'Strange', and 'normal', however, are subjective terms.

We drove for hours before I thought about stopping. I didn't know where I was taking us, so I just focused on covering as much distance as possible, hoping they wouldn't look where we were going. Or maybe we'd get so far away that the abundance of possibilities of our location would make it almost impossible for them to track us down. I didn't know who 'they' were, but there was no feasible scenario in which 'they' were good.

A few hours later I pulled into the parking lot of a 24-hour megastore. Jasper was asleep, still in the same position but, due to his unconsciousness, his lips were slightly parted. I remembered how they tasted, how I'd sunk my teeth into his tender skin, and I knew that he wouldn't be able to stop me if I… No. With great difficulty I pulled my thoughts away from him, and put a pathetic little blockade up against his allure. _It's difficult now, _I told myself, _but it's going to get easier. It has to._

I found a secluded spot that wasn't too close to the overwhelming light of the store before I cut the engine. I retrieved my bag from the back and gently shook him awake. He groaned slightly, lifting his head away from the glass. He half-opened his eyes, disorientated.

"Morning," I joked. He didn't laugh.

He looked around a bit, glancing briefly in my direction but he broke our eye contact as quickly as made it. "Where are we?" he asked, but as soon as he spoke he spotted the name of the store behind my head. He narrowed his eyes, confused.

"We need to pick up a few things," I explained.  
Producing a pen and a small piece of paper from my bag, I scrawled down a list of items that I couldn't find back home. When I was finished, I tore the list horizontally and handed the smaller half to him. "Get everything I've written down and meet me back here when you're done, okay?"

He scrutinised the words for a second, trying to decipher my handwriting before looking back to me. "I don't have any money," he said.

I dug through the bag for my wallet but I couldn't find it, so I got out to check the boot, and sure enough, there it was in the corner behind the backseat. As I slammed the boot door shut, Jasper emerged from the car. I handed him thirty dollars, which I reckoned should've been enough for everything on his part of the list, and he took it gingerly. Our hands didn't touch.

"Be as quick as you can," I told him when we parted at the entrance. He gave me a quick half-nod and wandered off to an aisle at the opposite end of the store.

About twenty minutes later, the process taking longer than anticipated, I found myself bagging items at one of the few open tills. I would look up occasionally to scan as much of the store as was possible from where I stood, but there was no sign of Jasper. I figured he'd already finished up and was waiting for me outside, but when I stepped back out to the parking lot, I was shocked to find not one, but two figures waiting by my car. Jasper was standing with his back to the passenger seat, but the other boy was turned away from me, his hood pulled up.

At first I didn't know how to react, or if I should even react at all. Was this guy a threat or a harmless stranger? Did Jasper know him? I couldn't make up my mind until Jasper made eye contact with me, and his dark acquaintance followed suit; the stranger's eyes growing wide when they met mine. He snatched a small item from Jasper's hands, before turning and sprinting in the general direction of the parking lot exit.

The guy had a limp which greatly impaired his speed. I cut across the lot diagonally, my feet slamming against the concrete, and it was a matter of seconds before I was tackling him to the floor. I grazed my knees. I grabbed him around his neck and held him down with the weight of my body.

"What did you take?" I growled.

The guy had these small beady eyes, and the kind of face I wanted to rearrange. I thought about how satisfying it would be to ball my hand into a fist and hit him over and over again. But I controlled myself. He was breathing hard – I waited for him to speak, but no words came.

Instead, he withdrew something from his coat pocket - it was the small object I'd seen him take from Jasper – and, scowling like a little kid who'd just been grounded, he handed it over to me.

I turned it over a few times in my hands, climbing off the thief who, in turn, scrambled away into the night. _Is this what I think it is?_ I recognised the crack on the screen I'd made when I dropped it in the hallway at school, only a matter of hours ago. On the screen was part of a text message he'd been writing, addressed to 'Rose'. It read: 'Give this licence plate number to the poli-'… but that's all he'd managed to write. Perhaps I should've been more grateful for the kid who'd tried to take his phone after all. If only he'd got away.

I looked over at Jasper who was still leaning against my car, staring at the ground with his hair falling over his face.

Anger welled up inside of me, spreading through my body. He'd betrayed me. When I thought we were getting somewhere, when I thought things were beginning to work he'd simply turned his back. I looked over at his weak and pathetic figure and I wanted to hit him. No I didn't. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to kiss him and fuck him and make him scream but I didn't want to hit him.

I waited until he glanced up at me before I slipped the cell into my pocket. He needed to see. He needed to know he wasn't getting it back.

**JPOV**

I caught sight of it when he went to check the boot for his wallet. It was there in his bag, floating among the debris: the bottles of water and condoms and cigarettes. Emmett wasn't looking, so I snatched it and shoved it quickly into an inside pocket of my jacket. I then wrapped the jacket tightly around myself, checking to make sure the object wasn't obvious underneath the fabric. It didn't bulge out awkwardly, so I was hopeful that he wouldn't notice. I crossed my arms, covering it when I took the money from him, and I was quick in the store. The cashier couldn't move the items across the scanner fast enough. She couldn't give me the change fast enough.

But still, I was relieved when I walked out and saw that Emmett was nowhere to be found. If only I could've sent that message. I could've deleted it after, returned the cell to his bag and he would never have known, and as long as it didn't run out of charge, I could've kept in contact with Rose, with my family, and they could've come and found me. But I had witnessed him slip the only chance of my escape into his pocket, and I knew from the look in his eyes that I would never see it again.

"Get in," he grunted when he returned, his tone laced with impatience. He slammed his door shut while I tried to close mine as quietly as possible, and once the key had been turned in the ignition, he slammed his foot down on the acceleration and sped out of the parking lot.

We returned to gliding along darkened highways, a hazy landscape slipping past the window. At one point, I could've sworn I saw the failed thief limp by – half a second and gone. Swallowed by the night. We moved at a constant speed, and the gap between us was yawning. Silence. It was early in the morning and most of me wanted to be home. I wanted to be safe, but he had plucked me from the streets and claimed me as his own. I wanted to be free, but I was also fighting the little pieces of me that liked this, that liked belonging to and being underneath him.

He pulled over later, out onto the side of a quiet, detached little road. There were fields either side of us, and the cars that passed were few and far between, but when they did pass, they moved too fast and it was too dark to see any of their passengers, or for them to see us. We were almost alone again.

For a while we sat in silence. He rested his arm on the steering wheel and his head in his hand. Occasionally I would steal glances at him, my eyes falling upon his dark stubble and his Adam's apple. My red flesh in his throat. He didn't move, and his expression was firm like marble.

"I'm sorry," I said at length. My voice came out awkward and detached. It was a feeble cut into the silence, but it had broken nonetheless, and now there was nothing but me tugging us forwards.

He smiled, without his eyes and without his teeth. He lifted himself away from the steering wheel, leaning back in his chair but he refused to face me. "No you're not, Jasper. Both of us know you'd do it again." And both of us knew, that no matter how much I wanted to deny it, he was right.

I had nothing to say. The silence, thick and translucent, cloud-like, reformed. His body grew blurred behind it. I aimed to cut it again with my flabby tongue, and it was a calculated failure but I didn't let it throw me off. I didn't know who, or what, I was fighting for anymore.

"Did I hurt you?" I asked. He thought about it for a while.

"Yeah," he laughed, with no trace of humour in his tone, "you did."

I swallowed. "Then I'm sorry for that."

He lightly hit the steering wheel with his fists, turning now to look out the window. "You just don't get it, do you?" I started to ask what I didn't get, but he spoke again before I could. "Your apologies are bullshit. I just want you to want me," he said, and then, finally, he turned to face me, "and you've let me know that I can't have that. I just don't give a fuck about anything else."

As he stared at me and I stared back, the urge to kiss him rose in me again. My captor, my rapist – I wanted to do everything with him. I wanted him to make me scream again.

I fought it. I fought it. I tackled it back inside of me, and I broke eye contact with him for good measure.

"Emmett," I said, my eyes falling on the dashboard. "How can you expect me to want you after what you've done?" He shrugged. He didn't know that I wanted him regardless. "I don't even know you. I don't know if you just want my body or if you…" I swallowed, almost choking on the next word. "… or if you think you love me or something. But we only spoke once before yesterday – you never made the effort with me, and who knows, maybe if you had…" He cut me off, and it was good timing too. I didn't know how I was going to finish that sentence.

"And I suppose you're one to talk about effort," he muttered.

"Excuse me?" I tried to sound assertive and strong. My voice came out quiet, like I'd simply misheard and was asking for him to repeat himself.

"Your social life was just soaring before all this, wasn't it? You were just so outgoing and popular."

"Fuck off." The regret hit me the second the words left my mouth, and it was a little bit like poison: liquid and powerful. I could feel it filling me.

His disbelief was tangible as he half-laughed and half-gasped. I didn't chance a look at him. "What did you say?" His tone was calm. The quiet before a storm.

I inhaled sharply. There was no turning back now. "I said, fuck off," I repeated, separating each syllable. Impatience laced my shaking voice.

"Don't tell me what to fucking-"

I turned to him. "No," I cut him off. "Don't act like you fucking know me. All this 'I want you to want me' bullshit – cut it out. I don't care if you're lonely. I don't care if you want me. What you've done to me – what you're _doing_ to me – it's wrong, Emmett. I shouldn't be here, and I shouldn't have to hear you telling me what you think you feel about me.

"You don't know why we moved to Forks. You don't know why I live like this. You don't know anything about me. So just, fuck off."

I sat there for a moment, staring at him, breathing heavily, and he stared back. He stared back at me, but past me. Through me. More than ever, I wanted to be connected to him. I stared at his lips, and slipped my tongue quickly over my own. He looked so sweet. He looked so good.

The urge to kiss him spread through me like an adrenaline rush. It took over my arms, and threw my hands around the back of his head. It knotted my fingers into his hair and it spread to my face. I pushed my lips to his. I didn't let him go.

At first he was unmoving underneath my fire. Hard like diamond. Then his hand moved to my chest and gently, he pushed me away. His breath was warm on my face. I didn't open my eyes.

"Jasper," he whispered. "Jasper, is this definitely what you want?" He spoke slowly.

I nodded quickly.

"No. Think about it," he said. "Think about it for a second."

I didn't want to. I didn't want to change my mind. It was like being depressed and stubborn – as much as I knew in the long run it wasn't what I wanted, I didn't want to move from that mindset.

I pressed my lips back to his. It took a while, but soon he too was overcome by desire. He locked his arms around my back and pulled me closer, but there was the gearstick and the gap in the seats between us. There was too much distance.

This was so wrong. Why did I want this? I'd just told him he didn't know me, and I didn't know him. How could we have wanted each other?

_It's only sexual_,I told myself. _It's only sexual. After this, he's going to take me home. We're going to come to an agreement, and he'll take me home._

He pushed his tongue inside my mouth. I fought back with my own. My dick was so hard.

I climbed on top of him so that we were facing each other, my legs either side of his. I could feel his erection against my thigh; I reached down to touch it, unbuttoning his jeans, sliding my fingers over it. Our lips came back together as I rubbed him, soft and slow at first. He tasted so good. This was so wrong. This was so right.

I moved back slightly and slid my hand into his underwear, gripping his dick and rubbing it harder and faster. I had to lean in further now so that I could carry on kissing him, but he pulled me back in to him, his lips moving to my neck.

With my other hand, I held the back of his head. I knotted my fingers in his hair again, kissing it. Kissing him.

Why had I relented? Why had I fought back?

I wanted this. I needed this.


	4. Three and a Half

"You're like the ocean," I said.

He turned to look at me, his eyes narrowed. "What?" He spat the word out, half-laughing.

I took the cigarette between my lips and inhaled. The substance warmed me, calmed me. I savoured it deep at the bottom of my lungs and the taste of it on my tongue. I wanted to kiss him again. I always wanted to kiss him, but I held back. If I ever wanted this to work I'd have to learn to control myself.

I felt his eyes still on me as I let my gaze linger on the horizon, painted in the burning lights of a distant city. It's difficult to imagine what it's like to be stood under an office building, the light in every room revealing a different person or people. All of the lights in that building and the buildings surrounding it get smudged into ambiguity. It ceases to be a million different things, a million different lives or stories and it merges into one. It becomes a something. Something irrelevant to us.  
Slowly, I exhaled. The smoke slipped over my teeth and it danced in the cold night air. Escaping. Diffusing. Hot against cold. The thought of his electric fingers gliding over my chest. The urge for something and its concrete possibility.

I turned. Our eyes locked.

"Nothing."


End file.
